Washington, April 7 : The United States Labor Department has said that the country''s employers have added 120,000 jobs in March, leading to the unemployment rate to fall to 8.2 percent.

According to ABC News, economists expected 210,000 jobs to be added in March and the unemployment rate to stay at 8.3 percent as more discouraged workers re-entered the job market.

A senior economist with Welch Consulting, Stephen Bronars, called the jobs report "disappointing", but cautioned against interpreting only one month of data. He added that he was concerned about long-term trends.

The report comes from two private surveys showing that the economy is getting better. CareerBuilder''s quarterly report said that more employers were planning to add jobs to their workforce.

Jobless claims are now down to their lowest level in past four years, after falling to 357,000 in the final week of March, the Labor Department reported.

In the past year employment for college graduates was up by 1.47 million, and was up by about 800,000 for workers with some college education, including an associates degree. Jobs are down by 222,000 for workers with a high school diploma or less.

Bronars said, "People don''t quit a job in a recession or if they think it will be very difficult to find a better job. In a healthy job market, people are optimistic enough to quit their jobs. Quits are still 30 percent below their pre-recession levels. I will believe the labor market has recovered when we see an increase in quits," as reported by ABC News. (ANI)